Image: Lars Müller Publishers, Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris and the editor.
Join Maristella Casciato, Ed Dimendberg, Lars Müller, and Vikram Prakash in discussion to celebrate the release of Le Corbusier's Album Punjab with annotations from Casciato.
In February 1951 the Swiss-French architect was invited to the Indian state of Punjab to help develop the master plan for the new capital of the region, following the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent into two separate states, India and Pakistan. During his early weeks visiting the region where the city would develop, Le Corbusier kept a notebook which presents his written or sketched memos and personal reflections as well as notes and schematic solutions elaborated during meetings.
Despite the abundant literature on the development of Chandigarh – which has become one of the most widely known examples of a city built from the ground up – until now, little attention has been given to the early days of its planning. The Album Punjab garners the visual experiences of the environment he encountered during his first weeks of zigzagging across the Punjab region. More importantly, it constitutes a primary source for reconstructing the questions addressed by the small team of architects and governmental officials who in only a few days developed the outlines of the Chandigarh plan.
For the first time Le Corbusier’s famously illegible handwriting is transcribed, translated and illuminated in an accompanying volume to the facsimile edition. Maristella Casciato retraces the story of this momentous trip and provides the context for Le Corbusier’s jottings and sketches with enlightening detail and clarity. The volume also presents unpublished photographs by Pierre Jeanneret who joined Le Corbusier on the first trip to Punjab and would be stationed there for the next fifteen years.
MARISTELLA CASCIATO The Album Punjab fed my fascination for ‘beginnings’. I had met the city of Chandigarh before I discovered the Album Punjab, which was a revelation to me. I began a laborious project, collaborating with my colleague Francesco Passanti for the transcription/translation of the annotations, and subsequently writing the commentaries, based on many archival sources and diverse documentation.
LARS MÜLLER As publisher I am compelled to focus on the process it takes for an architect or designer to arrive at the final opus, including those early sketches and notes that can reveal the thoughts, feelings and shrewd judgements of the creator. This facsimile edition of Le Corbusier’s notebook makes tangible his working process and the experiences he encountered in the days leading up to and during the expedition to the region where Chandiarh would be built. We were lucky to be able to publish photographs by Pierre Jeanneret, which further brings this momentous expedition to life.
MARISTELLA CASCIATO
Senior curator, Head of Architectural Collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.
Casciato has been responsible for major acquisitions such as Frank Gehry Papers, 1954–1988, and Paul R. Williams Papers. She has co-curated exhibitions including The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930 (2017), MONUMENT(ALITY) (2018), and Bauhaus Beginnings (2019). Among her recent publications: Rethinking Global Modernism. Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial, co-edited with Prakash and Coslett (2022); Technoscape. The Architecture of Engineers (2022); and the facsimile reprint of Le Corbusier Album Punjab, 1951 (2024). Casciato has been nominated 2023 Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians.
ED DIMENDBERG
Cultural Historian of Architecture and Urbanism
Dimendberg is Professor of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine, and founder of its Architecture and Urban Studies Research Cluster. His first book, Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity (2004), was followed by Diller Scofidio+ Renfro: Architecture after Images (2013). Most recently, the Getty Research Institute published in its Texts and Documents series his critical edition of Los Angeles:The Development, Life, and Structure of the City of Two Million in Southern California (2022), the 1935 geography of the city by Anton Wagner. His research has been supported by fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Getty Research Institute, the Graham Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Currently, he is writing a book on documentary films about architecture.
LARS MÜLLER
Norwegian born, Müller has been based in Switzerland since 1963. After becoming a graphic designer in Zurich, extended travels, and a one-year assistant position with designer Wim Crouwel in Amsterdam, he established Lars Müller Publishers, with offices in Zürich. In 1983 Müller published his first book and produced some 800 titles to date, spanning the fields of design, architecture, contemporary art, photography and society. During his long career he has undertaken several projects related to facsimile reprints, such as the Bauhaus Journal 1926-1931 and the series of the Bauhaus Books. Müller is also a passionate educator and has taught at various university in Switzerland and internationally.
VIKRAM PRAKASH
Architect, Architectural Historian, and Theorist
Vikramaditya “Vikram” Prakash is Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington with adjunct appointments in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design and Planning. Vikram works on issues of modernism, postcoloniality, global history and fashion & architecture. His books include Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India; A Global History of Architecture (with Francis DK Ching & Mark Jarzombek); One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash, Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial (co-edited with Maristella Casciato and Daniel Coslett); Le Corbusier's Chandigarh Revisited. Preservation as Future Modernism (2024).